The Ring of Clashing Metal
by Sekai-Otouto
Summary: SasoDei, HidaKaku, AU
1. Chapter 1

Sparks flew as the two blades clashed. Deidara had been burning with the urge to fight this opponent for quite a time since he knew him, then again, he hoped different kinds of sparks would fly between the two, now that the day was finally here he was giving it his all. Sasori eyed his 'partner' in disgust as he parried the attack that had just been launched on him, his heart was pulsing, when he met his opponent, when he got to know him, Sasori never knew that it would come to this, but in this occasion he found it only fitting that it did. Swords clashed again, with the loud sound of colliding metal, sparks rained once again over the two battling figures.

_7 Months Earlier_

Sasori sighed as he and his comrades embarked on the beginnings of a vengeance mission, a raid on a village to the north, that had taken many lives from Sasori's organization. Sasori's superiors had ordered that he and the several other individuals that had been assigned to the same mission, to spy on specific members of the opposing organization known as 'Shihanma' and learn their weaknesses, strengths, personality traits, even learn some of their history. They had been spying on said members of the 'Shihanma' for 3 or 4 months, which was much too long for Sasori who despised being kept waiting for things, they knew enough by now to carry out the next mission, which was to kill them in secrecy and take their emblems, badges, and uniforms, each member of Sasori's team was assigned to a specific member of the enemy organization, all of the enemies that were to be killed were in close contact with the ring leader of the 'Shihanma'.

For this certain mission, Sasori brought his most prized weapon, Tetsusuna, the weapon was sleek, long, black and lethal. It's grip was red with thin black lines curled like a snake around the red. The hand guard was in the shape of a curled up scorpion, the eyes on which were made of green emerald stone. The tail on the hand guard also served as a poison container which could have any weapon dipped in it, so long as the weapon was small enough to dip in, a needle for example. The blade was thin and lethally sharp, it was made of black iron so wasn't easily shattered, to the end of the blade it curved into an equally lethal point that was specially designed to absorb poison and be able to release it upon being driven into an enemies body. It was his prized sword because he acquired it by defeating and killing the leader of the village he betrayed several years before he joined his organization 'Akatsuki', he learned his own techniques in mastering the weight, ability, and durability of Tetsusuna.

Sasori advanced quickly, his footsteps and breath so silent that it was as if they didn't exist. He had located his target, he waited until they were in a quiet secluded place where nobody would hear him jump down but his victim. With a lick of his lips in satisfaction, he jumped down and plunged the blade into the 'Shihanma' member, killing him instantly. Blood began to pour everywhere, staining his 'Akatsuki' uniform, _"Good thing Leader-sama told us to make this a disguise retrieval mission" _Sasori thought to himself as he quickly pulled on the enemies uniform, leaving the corpse with a little bit of final dignity by putting his discarded shirt and pants onto him. Sasori grimaced when he thought of how much Ryo that greedy Kakuzu was going to make him pay for a new 'Akatsuki' uniform, given one of the reasons Sasori didn't like the sounds of this mission from the start was that his leader had told him and his team that if any evidence of their murders were left then to burn the clothes that had the evidence on them, Sasori thought of this as just the leader's way of getting a peek at the bodies of his comrades but nevertheless, he was not to be questioned.

Sasori lit a match and set the Akatsuki cloak alight, cursing silently at his leader while doing so for making him do that. At first he thought that his leader was insane for thinking that the 'Shihanma' would actually buy their disguises, given their faces would look nothing like the originals, that's why he was relieved to discover that the specific members that they were to assassinate wore masks to display their elite rank to those below them, a bit of a completely self centred complex, Sasori had thought, then he remembered the ego of his leader and it all suddenly made sense. The reason why his leader had picked these individuals above all the others was that they reminded him of how superior he was to them and that such egotistical scum shouldn't be allowed to live. _"What a hypocritical leader we have"_ thought Sasori with a disapproving expression, however he could not deny that, no matter what the circumstances were, he still enjoyed killing someone with Tetsusuna for the first time in a while. When the rest of his team had successfully taken down their targets and acquired their disguises, they headed back to the 'Akatsuki' hideout.

"Did you hear?" asked one of Sasori's team-mates, "There's a newbie joining our ranks tomorrow, leader-sama says we're to put him through initiation, thinks the newbie has potential too"

Sasori looked at him puzzlingly, how could a new person be joining the Akatsuki? Wasn't there enough already, bringing random Rogue Ninja in to assist Sasori in his mission seeing as he had no partner was something enough but a new member? "What if the initiation doesn't go to plan and he doesn't join our ranks" asked Sasori, genuinely wondering about what would happen then.

"If he doesn't join our ranks…" said the temporary Akatsuki member, "Then we're under orders to eliminate him."

Sasori was intrigued by this plan, he was looking forward to the following day.


	2. Chapter 2

_Three days earlier._

Deidara smiled as an ear-cracking bang was heard from towns around, he had succeeded in creating the loudest and most devastating bomb he'd ever perfected. "What a piece, un!" he yelled arrogantly so he could hear himself over the large sound of his own bomb going off that continued to echo through the night sky, "Best piece of art I've produced yet, un!" he continued. He waltzed away from his viewing spot as the 'fireworks' began to die down, a maniacal smile spread from one ear to another. He was satisfied with his new piece of work. He thought of the many burning buildings he had levelled to the ground with his new bomb, how much scum he'd wiped off the earth, he flicked his hair out of his face as some sort of victorious gesture to himself. His heart was racing with pleasure as he sped off to find his next destination, his close ranged weapon that he liked to call 'Shinda' hung limply at his waste. Deidara preferred ranged explosions to close range combat, although that's not to say he didn't enjoy plunging 'Shinda' into the chest of an enemy once in a while, however, there was something more to Deidara's sword, something much more that suited his ideals, the feature of his blade that would prove fatal to anybody who underestimated him.

While Deidara kept moving onward, while smiling and laughing maniacally inward, he came to a sudden halt, he had heard a thud not too far up ahead followed by the low chuckling of a man and the complaints of pain from another. Deidara, upon hearing the two immediately stopped his laughing and concentrated on what he was to do next, as the voices got alarmingly closer, his conclusion was to just jump into a bush, so with legs half like jelly he managed to silently enough keep himself concealed from the naked eye.

He was soon to discover, he wasn't that lucky. The man that had fallen earlier, who had a face as if he was half breed between fish and man with an abnormally large blade wrapped in layers of bandages on his back, wearing a headband like Deidara himself was wearing, with the symbol of his former village on the metal of the headband with a straight, horizontal gauche straight through the middle of the symbol in question. His clothes, which Deidara was not wearing, consisted of a black zipped up hooded sweatshirt, with a large red cloud on the back and some of the same red clouds only smaller on the two arms, in between the two sides of the zip that went straight down the middle of the sweatshirt and the bottom left corner of the sweatshirt. The man's bottom half consisted of black jeans with red stitching, that way, down the sides of each leg of the jeans was a line of red. The man that chuckled lowly was in the same attire but he had completely human features, unlike his fish-like partner. Deidara had seen this attire once before but had never actually been up close to someone wearing it before.

Deidara was trying his best to keep completely still in the bushes he was hiding in, until he was bitten by a nearby beetle which made Deidara move and squish the beetle, he then sat in hope that nobody heard the rustling of the bushes but his hopes were in vain as he heard the man he had heard chuckling earlier say to his partner. "Silence, Kisame, it appears we have company."

"Ha-ha, it was probably the sounds of our alluring voices that drew them in, Itachi" said Kisame, jokingly.

"I said silence, half-wit." said Itachi impatiently. Deidara saw Itachi take out a piece of technology the size of an ornament from his pocket and put it to his eye. Deidara hadn't seen much visual technology before so he had no clue what he was in for. He saw Itachi smile and come strolling towards the bush he was hiding in. "Kisame, I think I've found our target" he called behind him as a half-sane smile crept onto his face.

"Finally, I was wondering if we were in the right place! I was getting bored too" replied Kisame as he followed Itachi over to the bush that Deidara was hiding in. Kisame, without hesitation and indeed, without consent from his partner, jumped into the bush and grabbed Deidara, whispering in his right ear "Found you~". Deidara instinctively elbowed Kisame in the face which brought Kisame's hands to his face.

As Kisame staggered backwards his partner bolted towards his partner's attacker, who had now unsheathed his sword. Deidara's sword was one that he worked on frequently. The swords grip was jet black with orange zigzagging like lightning up the back and front of the sword, on the sides of the grip were small, red buttons. The hand guard was the same colour but it was in the shape of one of the clay birds Deidara was able to make, three rectangular 'feathers' on each side, each containing what the three buttons on each side of his sword released.

He called after him, "If you can defeat me I'll go with you with no questions asked, but if I defeat you…well… I defeat you" Deidara said as a twisted smile appeared on his face.

Deidara fingered the buttons in question then thought to himself "No, it's not time yet, these aren't the people I'll use my masterpieces on…".

After living on his own for several years as a traitor to his village, Deidara had learned quite a lot in self defence, craftsmanship, swordsmanship and survival skills. He used some of these in the battle he had with the two people who had just come across him. The one called 'Kisame' came at Deidara with his own sword, which was considerably bigger than Deidara's. Deidara parried the attack and struck the top of his opponents sword, knocking some indescribable substance off it, but Deidara could see he hadn't done much damage. The two swordsmen battled expertly, until Deidara deployed a gas bomb, containing tear gas that he had hidden on his belt, along with various other do-dad's.

Deidara attempted to flee but just as he thought he was safe, he let his guard down by stopping temporarily and he felt a strong arm restraining him and a hand, with black painted fingernails covering his mouth. He quickly pulled away from his attacker, took out a flash bomb from his belt and threw it to the ground, stunning himself and his enemy. "So careless" he heard a familiar voice say in a mocking tone. "Silence, it's about high time that I killed at least one of you, un!" yelled Deidara at what he hoped was his enemy instead of a person shaped bush. Deidara felt a hand on his shoulder, he turned his head to meet a fist. "That's gonna smart in the morning" he thought to himself. At last Deidara heard the draw of a blade, he heard the enemy running at him and parried his blade. Sparks flew off the two clashing blades as they rapidly collided in one lethal swing after another until Deidara finally plunged his blade into his enemy's arm. Now was his chance, his enemy had been shocked momentarily by the events of the last 15 seconds and was losing his balance. Deidara took that chance to kick his enemy to the leaf-littered floor.

"You know," said Deidara, "I really hoped I wouldn't have to kill you with this but it seems you're enough of an enemy for me to have to do so…what a pain, un". Deidara stood above his attacker, thumb hovering over the first of the 6 red buttons on the side of the hilt of his sword. Just as he was about to blow his enemy to oblivion, Deidara felt a sharp pain in the back of his neck, forcing the nerves in his arms to react, therefore forcing his hands to drop the sword. Deidara opened his eyes after closing them from the momentary agony caused by the prick in the neck he seemed to have received, he looked down and there was no body of his enemy there anymore. "That was close" said Kisame, the kid almost blew the lot of us to kingdom come.". A low chuckle was heard after that, "Fret not, as long as I have my hallucinogen, no harm will come to us" said Itachi, with a tint of victorious arrogance in his voice.

Deidara knelt there, not being able to believe the way he was defeated by hallucinogen gas. He could also not comprehend the fact that he had been so heated in battle with Kisame that he had forgotten all about Itachi and what he had tried to do to Deidara earlier. Deidara felt humiliated. He, of course, now had to keep to his end of the bargain. He was not looking forward to the time he would have ahead.


End file.
